In a typical enterprise that manages a significant number of documents, document processing solutions are usually utilized to process these documents. These document processing solutions have functionalities for handling the documents such as, for example, document routing, document conversion from one format to another, document indexing, document search, document archival and the like. For every instance a processing is performed on a document using the document processing solution, a document processing transaction occurs.
Document processing solutions are traditionally sold and deployed on a project basis, wherein the selling price of the solution is based on a value of the software product and/or the front-loaded project costs to implement the solution. This pricing set-up may limit solutions deployment to businesses that cannot afford the upfront cost and may have varying usage levels of the solutions over time. For example, one company may find the cost of the software product too high when it intends to use the product to process or manage documents at a smaller volume or for only a limited period of time. Meanwhile, another company may have a higher throughput of document processing transactions using the solution. Having higher document processing throughput may increase the ongoing maintenance costs of the solution—a variable which might not be reflected in the selling price of the solution. Currently, there are no service methods that interact directly or peripherally with clients of a solution to quantify and valuate the throughput of business operations software that processes documents.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a method of quantifying and valuating document processing transactions in a client application performed using a software program product. What is needed is a method of monitoring discrete document processing transactions and valuating these transactions for use in charging one or more registered clients for using the software program product. What is also needed is a method that provides solution providers a methodology and framework for quantifying and valuating discrete transactions. Additional benefits and alternatives are also sought when devising solutions.